The First Trailer for ‘Star Trek Discovery’ is Stunning

The long-awaited and oft-delayed new Star Trek TV series is one step closer to becoming an actual reality. CBS All Access, a new streaming service offered by the CBS network, released the first trailer for what was intended to be their flagship series on launch earlier this year. With what we see now, the wait seems to be more than worth it. Star Trek Discovery stars Sonequa Martin-Green (The Walking Dead) and Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) in a new exploration of the final frontier. Set a decade prior to the events of the original series, Discovery promises to be a bold new look at the classic series, taking it to aesthetically stunning heights. Too bad it’s only available via subscription—that model all but assures that many will never get the chance to see the latest from the Star Trek series, which has been off television for 12 years now. Discovery premieres this fall.

(CBS)

‘Okja’ Trailer is Full of Heart

Visionary Korean director Bong Joon Ho (Snowpiercer) unveiled his second English language film, Okja, at Cannes earlier this week, and now Netflix has released a trailer for all to see. The film follows a young girl, Mija (Seo-Hyun Ahn) who befriends a giant, genetically engineered pig, only to have it ripped it away from her by corporate interests, personified by Tilda Swinton. She finds hope in environmental activists, led by Paul Dano, as they attempt to rescue her beloved Okja. Giancarlo Esposito, Steven Yeun, and Lily Collins also star in a film that recaptures a sort of E.T. feel and updates it for modern audiences. This is one of Netflix’s largest coups to date, and represents the further shift from the traditional models of film distribution. Okja premieres on Netflix on June 28.

(Netflix)

First Trailer for ‘The Alienist’ Released by TNT

TNT released the first trailer of their adaptation of Caleb Carr’s epic novel, The Alienist. The new series boasts an star studded cast, including Daniel Bruhl (Inglorious Basterds), Luke Evans (Beauty and the Beast), and Dakota Fanning (American Pastoral). They play a trio of detectives embarking on a mission to present the first ever psychological profile of a serial killer who’s targeting young, gay prostitutes in post-Victorian New York. Carr’s book was hailed as an instant masterpiece upon its publication in 1994, and the series is being helmed by Cary Fukunaga, who many attributed the success of the first season of True Detective. In a way, this series has much of the same DNA as HBO’s noir anthology, and should resonate deeply with those same fans. The Alienist premieres later this year.

(TNT)

Netflix Releases ‘The Dark Crystal’ Prequel Announcement Trailer

Jim Henson’s legendary work of high fantasy, The Dark Crystal, is getting a prequel series. Netflix dropped an announcement trailer earlier today for The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. The streaming service played it extremely coy, focusing its trailer on Henson himself, in an interview regarding the original film which was released over three decades ago. As of yet, we know very little about what to expect from the prequel series, though Jim Henson Studios is involved. Hopefully that means we get another visionary work of puppetry that will infect our nightmares for years to come. No word yet on release dates.

James Roberts is a freelance writer based in San Antonio; he writes about music, movies, television, and pop culture. When he’s not writing, he does his damnedest to convince his friends and wife that watching movies and TV actually does, in fact, count as working. While he’s neither good at nor terribly active on “the Twitter," he encourages you to follow him at @jroberts3456, if that’s your thing. James is an affiliate member of the Houston Film Critics Society and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.

The official Roddenberry explanation was that they didn’t have the money for makeup in the original series and that we should just assume that they always had ridges.

That didn’t fly, obviously, so in Enterprise they explained that the ancestor of Data’s creator stole the genetic research that led to the creation of Khan and his lot and it fell into the hands of the Klingon’s and their work, in turn, turned into a massive virus that caused a disfigurement in a significant portion of the population which led to Klingons with no ridges as seen in the original series.

The reigning theory for their look in Discovery is that these particular Klingons are part of a slowly dying ancient subspecies of Klingons that we’ve never seen before, but that’s conjecture.

(Or you can just hand wave over it like they did in DS9 and say “we don’t talk about it with outsiders.”)